Nico & the Nine
by juxtaPoseidon
Summary: After the war against Gaea, Nico di Angelo is expected to spend three days in the infirmary under the care of Will Solace. Though these three days are anything but uneventful, things get really complicated when Apollo appears with a new quest to restore the power of prophecy.


**Nico & the Nine**

_by juxtaPoseidon_

_A/N: Just recently finished Blood of Olympus and I was shocked how quickly I fell in love with Solangelo. Shocked enough to return to fanfiction after a four-year hiatus and a purging of my old stories. Hopefully this time goes better than the first._

_I've also recently re-entered tumblr, and as such have a rather pitiful amount of followers. Not to self-promote too much, of course. If you enjoyed this story, my url is in my profile, no pressure._

**Chapter I**

_Then he walked back across the green, where Will Solace was waiting._

Nico di Angelo followed Will through the Apollo cabin, to a set of stairs at the back that he had never seen before. Not that he had ever spent a lot of time in the Apollo cabin. Sunshine and music were two things that didn't tend to hang around him, as a son of Hades.

That was what had defined him almost entirely for the past few years of his life. Death. The death of his sister, Bianca. The death of the spirits he ended up spending almost all his time with. The deaths that fuelled his powers in the war against Kronos, and then later, Gaea.

But now both those wars were over, and he didn't know what he was supposed to be doing now.

Well, Will Solace certainly seemed to think he knew, and was rather upfront about that, which led him to where he was now, Cabin Seven.

The cabin itself was moderately clean, especially compared to the Hermes cabin, one of two cabins that Nico had spent an extended amount of time in. Although the number of residence of Cabin Seven rivalled that of Cabin Eleven, the children of Apollo seemed to have much better cleaning habits. He supposed practicing medicine would inevitably lead them to have good hygiene. The only things that ruined the picture of a perfectly clean cabin were the various musical instruments scattered about the room, as though someone might need them on a moment's notice.

"So what was that about?" Will asked.

Broken out of his observations of Cabin Seven, Nico wasn't quite sure what Will was asking. "What was what about?"

"You know... When you were talking to Percy."

Nico couldn't see the other boy's face as he was leading him towards the stairs, but he had a distinct feeling he could see Will's ears reddening.

"Just some unfinished business," Nico said. "Nothing to worry about."

Not that Will _would_ be worried if he had known that Nico was confessing his four year old crush on Percy. Why would he have any reason to worry about that?

"I didn't know the Apollo cabin had a second floor," he said, eager to change the topic of conversation. "None of the other cabins do, do they?"

"Our second floor only appears in emergency situations." Will explained. "The regular infirmary in the Big House gets really crowded and loud during times of war, so we have a second ward here for patients that aren't in immediate crisis and just need a place to rest. We always make sure there's a senior medic on duty, though. And lucky for you, that's me for the next three days."

"But you're the head medic." Nico blurted out. "And the counsellor. Aren't there more things for you to do with the important emergency patients?"

"For the first few days, sure. But everything's been gradually calming down, and now there's actually more complicated cases resting on our second floor."

Will briefly turned back towards Nico to flash him a quick smile. "Besides, you _are_ important."

Thankfully he went up the stairs before he could see the wide eyed, confused, and definitely, certainly _not_ blushing look on Nico's face. Trying to suppress the skeletal butterflies in his stomach, Nico followed the other boy up the stairs to an upstairs corridor lined with doors. Will gestured to one of the doors closest to the stairs.

"This'll be your room. And don't even think about trying any underworld stuff, because I'll be staying in the room right next door while I'm on duty, and I'll _know_."

Nico stepped into the small, but well-lit room with a comfortable looking bed, purposefully ignoring the fact that Will would be sleeping just on the other side of the wall. He immediately went to the room's one window, and closed the solid black curtains.

Will chuckled. "You have a problem with the sun or something?"

When Nico looked back at him, he was smiling like he was joking, but there was something about the way he was standing that made it clear he was waiting to hear an actual answer.

That was when Nico realized that he didn't have an actual answer. For what seemed like forever, he had been the son of Hades, destined to live in the shadows with the dead. He could barely even remember a time when sun meant being able to play Mythomagic outside, where the light would bounce delightfully off his special collector's edition foil cards, and his sister would look over to smile occasionally as she read her book under a nearby tree.

He was sure that he was no longer the boy that could enjoy the sun and what it meant to him back then, but he didn't think he wanted to spend all his time in the shadows either, not after seeing how easy it was to slip into them and never return.

So he answered Will by saying what was hopefully just pragmatic reasoning and not a sign of deeper issues. "I just didn't want the light in my eyes when I was sleeping. You were the one that told me to rest, after all"

Will just continued to look at him.

"I don't actually mind the sun if that's what you were wondering." Nico added, trying to sound as casual and noncommittal as possible.

He wasn't sure if it worked, because Will just smiled again. Not an immediate beaming, just a slow smile that almost looked sly at first, but then became that grin that Nico knew all too well. "Good, because you're going to have to get used to it."

Before Nico could react (or even find out what that was supposed to mean), Will started going back down the stairs. "You coming to breakfast? It'll be your last chance before your three day stay here which I _will_ be enforcing."

Nico allowed himself one small smile at that thought before following the older boy down the stairs.

By lunchtime, Nico wasn't sure if he would make it through three days of nothing but rest, no matter who his doctor was and what his smile looked like.

Breakfast had been a lively affair. The Romans weren't scheduled to leave yet, which meant he got to sit with Hazel at the Hades table, which meant that Frank couldn't stay away for long. Percy and Jason came over soon afterwards, declaring that their presence made this the new "Big Three" table, and their respective girlfriends joined them for the last half of the meal.

Will was also there. For purely medical reasons of course, he wanted to make sure that Nico was eating well.

"What do you mean you're only having an apple? Get some meat on those bones. Percy, give Nico your bacon. I don't care, you can get more later. Frank, you're huge, Death Boy needs that bread more than you do."

"Do _not_ call me Death Boy." Nico attempted to look menacing, but it was hard to keep up the look when just a little bit of drool escaped his mouth as Percy reluctantly gave him his bacon.

"I'll stop calling you Death Boy, when you stop looking like it. Jason you don't need all of that milk, give some to Nico."

But after breakfast was over, Nico went to him room in the Apollo cabin infirmary to begin his three day stay. Something he had clearly not thought through, as he had not brought anything to keep him occupied. Seeing as he had travelled almost constantly, he already didn't have a lot of his own possessions, but after his most recent adventure, he was left with nothing but the brightly coloured Hawaiian print clothes on his back.

He couldn't even resort to his usual method of sending a skeleton under the cover of the Mist to go get him a book or something else to pass the time, since Will would probably extend his stay to three months if he tried. Practicing swordplay was down for the same reasons. And the only thing he found in his small infirmary room was a bouncy ball in the bedside table, the kind you might win from a gumball machine.

_What did normal people do with their free time?_ Nico wondered. Or if not normal people, then normal demigods. He couldn't deny that even among demigods he was a bit of an oddball.

Annabeth read and designed buildings constantly. Percy usually sparred or went swimming. Other campers' past time seemed similarly dictated by their godly parent and what cabin they were in. Ares kids beat each other up for fun, Aphrodite's cabin was full of make up, clothes and gossip, and as of right now the Apollo cabin was too busy with the injured to enjoy their usual hobbies of archery and music.

As he lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling, he absentmindedly wondered what Will Solace did with his free time. From what Nico had seen so far, he already seemed a lot more stubborn and aggravating than the stereotypical laid back, carefree child of Apollo. What else was different about him? He was clearly interested in medicine but on the other hand, his musical talent seemed only to extend to taxicab whistles. And most Apollo children seemed easily scared of Nico, while Will definitely was not. He definitely wasn't a typical Apollo kid.

Nico didn't think he was typical at all.

Sighing, he resorted to absentmindedly bouncing his new ball off the walls and ceiling, while letting his thoughts drift. To Hazel, to Reyna, to Mr. D and the strawberry fields, to Jules Albert, and maybe one too many times, to Will Solace.

He didn't realize how much time had passed, but he was trying to bounce the ball off of the door, when it suddenly opened and he found himself instead bouncing a ball off of Will's forehead.

"Sorry!" Nico said, mortified. But Will just laughed it off, and walked in to set down the tray he was carrying at the foot of Nico's bed.

"So I guess that's what that weird thumping sound I kept hearing was. I thought I might have been imagining it. I brought lunch by the way, before you attacked me with that thing."

Nico tried to pull off an annoyed look that probably ended up looking more like a pout. "It's not my fault! There's nothing to do here! How do people just stay in bed all day?"

Will laughed again. Nico was getting a bit too used to the way his bright blue eyes lit up when he laughed. "Most people would kill to get a full day of rest. Meanwhile, I have to threaten to kill you to make you take a full day of rest."

"It's not the resting I mind so much," Nico said, picking up a sandwich off the tray and examining it. Roast beef and tomato with cheese. "But what am I supposed to do while I'm resting?"

"What do you usually do when you're not fighting monsters?" Will asked, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking a potato chip from the pile on Nico's lunch tray.

"I don't know. Read, I guess. Or..." Nico trailed off.

"Or...?"

"Well... I just, you know, talk to people."

Something about Nico's tone gave Will pause. "Who exactly?"

"Just... whoever's around. Or whoever I can... bring around." Nico looked firmly at his sandwich. And his lunch tray. Anywhere but Will. He didn't want to see the look in his eyes when he realized that Nico had spent a lot of his free time conversing with spirits of the dead.

"So, spirits."

The lack of disgust in Will's voice made Nico take a peek at his blonde healer, and instead of what he was expecting, he saw a look of concern.

This wasn't much better.

"You don't have to pity me. And I'm not going crazy or anything if that's what you're wondering," he spat out. "They have some interesting stories. And I can get rid of them easily when I'm bored. And it's not like anyone here was going to talk to -"

"There you go again." Now Will was frowning. "The cloud of brooding. You really think nobody here wanted to talk to you? You think Percy and Annabeth would just drop you after all you've been through together?"

"I'm not talking about them," Nico replied angrily. "And besides, they're busy... with each other. I'm talking about every other camper here who walks a little bit faster when they see I'm behind them, or is always on tiptoes around me, always careful not to offend me in case I send my daddy after them, or-"

"Screw those people," Will interrupted. "Maybe that's some people, but I can guarantee you it's not all of them. And have you ever tried to talk to them? Because five seconds of an actual conversation with you would show them that they have nothing to be afraid of. And if they're still being stupid about your godly parent, as if that's something you can control, you tell someone about it! Chiron, or Percy, or even Mr. D. Or me! _I _would have wanted to talk to you. I _tried_, and you just-"

"What?"

Will looked furious with himself. "Never mind that. The point is, maybe that's how it was in the past, but there's no way I'm letting you do that to yourself again."

He stood abruptly. "I've got to go take care of something. Make sure you eat all of that."

As Will closed the door behind him, Nico wondered what in Hades had just happened.

That night, Nico found himself attacked by a nine of diamonds playing card.

After Will left and Nico grudgingly finished his lunch, an Apollo camper whose name Nico didn't remember came to collect the tray. Nico had resigned himself to three days of doing nothing but bouncing a ball off his walls, but then he had an unexpected visitor in the form of Lou Ellen, from the Hecate cabin, who only seemed to stop chattering to blush fiercely for seemingly no reason. Or perhaps there was a reason, but Nico wasn't aware of it because he found himself tuning out when she went on one of her long hyper-active rants.

Finally, when a second Apollo camper brought Nico his dinner (he wasn't quite sure if it had been the same person who had taken his lunch tray), Lou Ellen seemed to take the hint that he wanted to eat his dinner in peace, and left, but not before leaving a gift.

"I thought you might be bored up here on your own." she said, the blush once again returning. "So I brought you these!"

She held out a pack of playing cards. Which Nico ended up using to play Solitaire after he finished his dinner and an Apollo camper (possibly the same camper as the first time, but almost definitely not the same as the second) took his tray.

He was in the midst of contemplating the irony that he was playing a card game designed for one person, after Will rather vehemently declared he wouldn't let Nico be lonely again, when the nine of diamonds card he had just played jumped up and bit him on the nose.

Frustrated at what he now realized was a trick deck, whether Lou Ellen realized it or not, he gave up on his unfinished game and went to sleep.

Which may have been a mistake.

It started innocently enough. He was taking a walk around the lake. Nymphs were looking at him rather warily, but he was used to that.

What he wasn't used to was the sudden appearance of Annabeth and Percy making out on the shore.

The two of them broke apart to glare at him for interrupting. In shock, he found himself saying the words _"For a long time I had a crush on you. I just wanted you to know_."

Then the most horrible sound came from Percy's mouth. A weird combination of cackling laughter and gagging. _"You little freak! Who do you think you are!" _

Nico stumbled backwards. But the words kept coming out "_You're cute, but you're not my type_."

Once again, that horrible laughter came from Percy's mouth, making his skin crawl. _"And who is your type, exactly? Boys?"_

Annabeth joined in the laughter, hers more similar to a wheezing sound. _"What kind of boy would want a little freak like you? Why can't you be normal for once? At anything?"_

The nymphs created an eery chorus from the bottom of the lake. _"You don't belong here... You don't belong here..."_

Percy stepped forward, a hateful look in his eyes. _"They're right. A fag like you belongs in only one place."_

Nico felt the entire world flip beneath his feet, and he found himself in Tartarus, the ground burning around him.

"_No..."_ he felt himself say. _"No! Not again!"_

Percy's voice echoed from above. _"Get used to it. This is where you belong, son of Death."_

And as if on cue, his father appeared, in all his terrifying godly glory. Skeleton soldiers, monsters, and giants alike were closing in around him. _"I wanted one of my children to be happy. Clearly, I made the wrong choice. Burn here while I go find another son."_

Hades turned to his true godly form to disappear, but by now, two skeleton had snuck up behind him, and used their bony fingers to keep his eyelids forced open. The brightness from his father seared in his eyes, and though he could no longer see, he could somehow tell that a giant had dropped a jar over his body. But this time the air was running out quickly, and there were no pomegranate seeds. He felt his body becoming weaker and less substantial as he became one with the shadows.

"NICO!"

And he woke with a start, to find Will Solace shaking him. The curtains had been drawn to let the moonlight in, which seemed to create a halo where it bounced off of Will's golden hair.

"Oh thanks the gods," Will's eyes were wide and frantic, as he slumped into a nearby chair, keeping one hand firmly on Nico's shoulder. "You were... you were fading."

Nico didn't say anything. Instead he focused on breathing, and feeling his bed, to make sure that he wasn't passing through, that his fingers were solid. He realized he had somehow passed through his blanket, which was now under him, though he was sure it had been on top of him before he fell asleep.

"So much for bed rest," Will sighed. "Clearly, letting you fall asleep isn't going to work right now. Were you having a nightmare?"

Too afraid of what he might say if he opened his mouth, Nico resorted to nodding.

For a while, Will just looked at Nico, his expression unreadable. Then he got up and went to the door. "Be right back."

When he came back, he was holding a lyre. "I'm usually not good with music," he said, smiling softly. "But healing is definitely my forte, so I guess this counts as part of that. Just try to relax. This is song that's supposed to stop you from getting nightmare. I never understood why this was part of our medical textbook... until now, I guess."

Nico still had not said a word. He just looked at the son of Apollo sitting next to him, beginning to play a few notes on the lyre.

It was a very soothing tune. Necessary, he supposed, when it was supposed to get patients to sleep. But it was more than that. Though Nico may not know a lot about music, he knew about nightmares. And this song was somehow the opposite of all of those. Not just some typical happy melody to cheer someone up though. Beating nightmares wasn't about being cheerful. In fact, the song Will played was almost a little sad. The song didn't try to defy sadness. It accepted sadness as a part of it, as a part of life. But for every sad chord and note, there was another verse or tune that spoke of courage. It was this part of the song that Nico heard, and tried to store deep within him. He needed as much of that as he could get, if every night he was going to go into the darkest parts of himself.

Before he knew it, the song was over, but Nico was smiling. "Thanks," he said.

Will smiled back, which gave him almost as much courage and happiness as the song did. "Not a problem, that's what I'm here for."

"Still," Nico said. "I didn't mean to wake you at -" He looked at his watch. "Three in the morning?!"

"Really it's not a problem," Will gently laid a hand on Nico's shoulder. "In fact I was already awake."

"What were you doing awake this late?"

Will smiled again, but this smile was more mysterious than he was used to seeing on Will. "Oh, just a little project I'm working on. You'll find out tomorrow. Or later today, I guess, technically."

Nico wanted to ask more questions, but Will started playing the lyre today. "Time to sleep, little angel. Close your eyes."

He wanted to protest yet another absurd nickname, which was presumably a play on his last name, but the lyre music was so calming, and his nightmare had exhausted him. The part of him that wanted to protest was made smaller, and smaller until it barely existed and drifted off to sleep with the rest of him.

And his last thought was that Will would make a much better angel than him anyway.


End file.
